FAQ

original photo by orangebrompton

I had a great time helping a friend with an online jewelry store makeover last month. It was another chance to see how crucial it’s to have a marketing blueprint.

If you have a good understanding of your target market, a clear strategy and you do act on it every day, then you success is virtually guarantied. Try it and you'll see you business grow even in slow economy like we have now.

When implementing your online marketing strategy, though, remember that if you have to redesign your jewelry website you should pay attention to few things in advance.

Here is one of them: if the URLs are going to be different, you should decide what would be the best way to handle it.

For instance, if you decided to use another shopping cart you most likely will have different page names (also known as URLs). That can result in broken links to your site. Your visitors (referred to old URLs by other sites and search engines) instead of product descriptions and categories will get an error message. That’s not good at all.

Although, solution to this problem is simple, I frequently hear: "I see that Google Webmaster Tools complain about hundreds of broken links at my jewelry website. What should I do?" Try this:

• If you had to change page URLs or move pages around, the safest option is to use "301 redirect". It simply means that a page was "moved permanently" and once Google, for example, will find that, it will “forget” the old URL and will use the new one instead. It's the most efficient and search engine friendly method for webpage redirection which should preserve your search engine rankings.
• Make your "Not found page" useful. Instead of just saying to you visitors that there is no such page at you site, offer something. You can suggest trying search or simply apologize for the missing page and show list of your jewelry categories and your home page. In other words give your visitors a good reason not to click on the back button and leave your site.

And remember that you should think about URLs, I repeat, in advance.

It takes a lot of hard work to get quality inbound links and have you site ranked. If pages get lost so does the rank as well as your online marketing efforts.

original photo by Chazwags

Every website owner’s dream is to get to the first page of Google's search results.

That’s neither easy nor fast, but the good news is that there are simple guidelines that will help you increase your chances.

Here are the common mistakes that most jewelry website owners make, but you won’t.

1. Not Using Page Titles Properly

Please, do not make it just 'My Home Page' or 'My Jewelry Store' or simply putting your company name there. Remember that the page title must have relevant keywords to the content of the page and at the same time should be human readable, because it will be shown in the search engine results. It really is worth your time. You need to make it a headline, a pitch, a shortest possible ad for that page. Every page should have its own title and it should clearly state what that page is about.

2. Trying To Cheat

There are many ways to cheat. For instance, you might add a hundred of terms into the “keywords meta tag”. I am sorry to disappoint you, but it will not do the magic. Yes, there was a 'loophole' long ago, but it is gone for good. When adding keywords, aim to be relevant to what you present on the page. Do not repeat the same terms several times - it won't help. Try not to use the same terms in the title and in the keywords, instead of that - use synonyms.

Another way to cheat on search engines is to use hidden (not visible) content which regular visitors do not see, but Google does. Well, again, it may have worked for some time, but it doesn’t any more.

Once and for all - don't cheat. If Google catch that - your site may be banned and you will lose all the time you have spent. There are many legitimate ways to win Google's favor.

3. Having Invalid HTML Code

Use free W3C Markup Validation Service to make sure that all your pages have valid code. If you have errors in your HTML, your site will have lower rank on search engines, will be slow to render and may appear incorrectly in some browsers. Double check even when your webmaster is sure that everything is fine and grade your website.

4. Link Trading

Every inbound link is a vote that your site is important. The rule seems to be simple: more links pointing to your site – the better your search engine rank will be. There are some complications though:

• Links should have your keywords. For example, I would use “How to Sell Jewelry Online” instead of http://howtoselljewelryonline.com
• You want to have links from relevant websites. There is no sense in having a link from autoparts.com. It is not about jewelry, nor does it have a good rank itself. Instead you would want a link from something like NationalJewelerNetwork.com which is a popular site with a strong search engine rank.
• Two-way linking does not work like it used to. Google seems to consider that as a link exchange and not as a real vote. That is why I do not require a link back when you submit your website to handcrafted jewelry directory. Most valuable links to your site are one-way links.

5. No Balance Between Text And Graphics

Yes, quality photos are critical to your success in selling jewelry online. At the same time search engines can’t see how wonderful your jewelry designs are. So, first you need to make sure that you have enough text, so that Google will be able to index your site properly. Secondarily, be aware that once Google sends you a visitor, you have about 10 seconds on average to get his/her interest and in that case it’s true that a good picture is worth a thousand words. Finding the right mix of both is the key to your jewelry website’s success.

Search engine optimization is an important step in every online marketing plan. You can get paid traffic using an online advertisement program, but if your site appears at the top of the first page of Google's search results that can bring you more customers that you can handle. Now imagine, how would you enjoy having that?

There are many possible reasons, but I would point out two of them:

1. You do not have relevant traffic. In other words, you get visitors that seek something different from what you offer;
2. You have relevant traffic, but you have usability issues. For example, somebody came to your site looking for an accessory, but couldn’t find the right one even though it was right there.

original photo by CayusaTo solve the first problem you need to get traffic analysis for your website. There are many free tools available, but I prefer Google Analytics over the others. Using that you can see where people are coming from, where they "landed" on your website, how much time they spent there and from which page they left. You will have a lot of information to think about and that alone may help you realize what is wrong.

The second problem is more challenging, because you can't see how people actually behave when visiting your website. Fortunately, there is a simple and very affordable solution for that. You can try a low cost usability testing. You will receive a video on how a real person would use your website for only $19.

When building your website try to think from your customers' perspective instead of focusing on what you offer.

That is the most frequent question that I receive from handcrafted jewelry directory members.

It usually goes like this: "I spent $X,XXX.xx and I have my lovely website/shopping cart up and running for several month by now and this whole online thing DOES NOT work. Nobody bought anything except couple of my close friends. What should I do to make it really work?"

Well, I am not sure that I can answer that in one single post and that was the reason for me to start this blog and talk about strategies and techniques that we can use to sell jewelry online.

The short answer is this "make more friends". Let me stress it little more - make a system, which will help you to make more and more friends. And there is a very simple reason to do that - people do not buy from complete strangers. Not a website nor a shopping cart will make your jewelry business successful but long and lasting relationship with people will.

You may say: "But I do not want do all that marketing stuff - I just like to make jewelry". Well, nothing wrong with that. You simply have a choice. If you just like beading or wiring gemstones then it's wonderful if that makes you happy but it usually called a hobby. If you want to be in business you should be ready to do what's necessary to produce a good product and then put it in front of interested people. And that is going to take time and effort to learn and act. Fortunately it is not that hard, long and complex as you may think.

If you just starting out with a web presence for your jewelry creations I would suggest you to start from building a community of people who likes what you do. And it is so easy nowadays when we have all this easy to use technology in our hands. Build and grow that community. Find a way share your achievements, products, thoughts, expectation and experience regularly to keep and improve that connection. Make it possible for you community to talk back to you and let you know what they think and learn to listen. Thus, you can find out what people want and what they would buy from you. What is also important that once you figure out a right product you will already have a crowd that knows and trusts you.

I see that most of the jewelry sites' owners do it exactly the other way around. They create a product and then they crave for buyers. This `traditional` approach to business, in my opinion, is responsible to the common saying that "9 out of 10 businesses fail". That is because people bet and create products "out of the blue" instead of finding a market first then ask what the market wants and then create just that. This way works every time if have enough guts and patience to follow all the way through.

Well, which way you do it?

Oh yeah. Your really should.

It is not really a marketing tip, but since we are talking about selling jewelry online we should make sure that we do optimize our product web pages for search engines like Google.

For those who are not familiar with what is a page title - it's a text, which you will see at the very top of your browser window when looking at a web page. Inside of the html you will see something like this: <title>My Page Title Here</title>.

The same text Google searchers will see when they will try to find your products. Try this search for yourself jasper bracelet. As you can see in the Google search results it is a really good idea to have for your page with jasper bracelets a title like this: "Jasper Bracelets | Your Site Name Here". Not diving into search engine optimization details too much (btw: let me know if you want me to), you should have a title which is very relevant to the page content and which is really easy to catch while eye-scanning search engine results. Thus you can improve your Google ranking for the page because it will be very easy for Google to find out what is the page about. Remember - title of your page is one of, if not, the most important thing, that can give you a huge improvement in search engine ranking.

I know that all of you spend a great deal of time making sure that you have best possible pictures for you products and of course that is really important. But search engines like Google cannot see how wonderful your photos are. It is absolutely required for you to follow certain rules if you expect Google to send you new clients.

An ideal title should have keywords that describe that particular page best and it should be 70 characters or less. Title longer then 70 characters will be cropped by Google and will look less catchy in the search results. Try to start from the phrase that explains what is on the page and you may add name of your site at the end. "Black Onyx and Moonstone Pendant | Creative Jewelry Designs" may be a good example.

And remember that usually more then 90% of people will not buy at the first visit on a new website. Analyzing sites at handmade jewelry directory I see that majority hope that visitors will come and buy. It is not that simple. Consider having a newsletter subscription. Let your existing customers know about new things regularly, so, that they will have a chance to get back to you and enjoy your products.